The truth about false memories

The Web Newsroom ^ | June 3, 2001 | John David Powell

[John David Powell]

johndavidpowell: today's world
A Communications Professional's View of the World
Posted: Wednesday, May 28, 2002; 0:00 p.m. MST

The Truth About False Memories

An abundance of evidence appears to exist to support allegations religious leaders, teachers, scout leaders, and other individuals in positions of trust lead double lives as sexual predators. There is also evidence that sadly suggests not all accusers are victims of sexual molestation or abuse at the hands of their accused or by anyone.

It is said that a child molester is a moral monster, and one court has observed that the term “child abuser” is “one of the most loathsome labels in society.” This is why care must be taken, especially by journalists, to avoid false accusations that brand a person an enemy of the human race, regardless of guilt or innocence.

Take as an example the California woman who claimed a priest sexually molested her in 1970 when she was a teenager. She told a newspaper shortly after making her claim that she suffers from schizophrenia and decided to sue the priest after the state cut her disability payments. She also said that nearly everyone she has ever known has either abused or molested her. A former supervisor said she constantly accused co-workers of vile and ugly deeds.

This woman’s action was a sick and deliberate attempt to smear a man in hopes of a seeing a big payday. A less kind person would call her a liar.

Although all lies are falsehoods, not all falsehoods are lies in the strictest sense. Some individuals come to the belief they are victims of sex crimes through a tortured psychological process that results in what are known as false memories. It is a practice that helps no one while casting doubt on true victims of violations.

Two articles from Cleveland State University’s Journal of Law and Health in 1996/1997 address tort claims filed against healthcare providers by parents falsely accused of sexual abuse. One case involved Gary Ramona who was accused by his 23-year-old daughter of molesting her when she was a child. Her unfounded claims of repeated rape before the age of 10 came from memories recovered during psychological therapy for bulimia. As a result of the allegations, which Ramona vigorously denied, his wife divorced him, his three teenage daughters refused to speak to him, he was fired from his $500,000-a-year job as a winery executive, and he was forced to sell the family’s $3 million house. His successful lawsuit was the first of what the article called a widespread phenomenon of false memory suits brought by accused parents.

A false memory is defined as a strongly imagined or totally distorted memory, a lie, or a misconstrued impression. Victims of false memories claim psychotherapists use suggestive techniques to implant details of ritual abuse, baby breeding, animal sacrifices, and forced cannibalism. In some instances, patients were induced to believe they had given birth when they were 8-years-old, a physical impossibility. One patient believed wires, inserted in the ankles, prevented the wearing of shoes other than Birkenstocks.

A major contributor to the rise in false memories is the book “The Courage to Heal” (www.lauradavis.net/comersus.asp), considered by some to be the bible of the recovered-memory movement, according to one Journal article. The authors, who had no academic training in psychology when they wrote the book, described the symptoms of early sexual abuse as eating disorders, drug or alcohol addiction, suicidal feelings, or sexual problems. The authors would have us believe that every adolescent could be a victim of sexual abuse if that person experiences loneliness, depression, powerlessness, feeling different, or the inability to express feelings. “Even if you are unable to remember any specific instances, but still have a feeling that something happened to you, it probably did,” the authors advise. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a cat that exhibits one or more of these symptoms daily.

Researchers are at odds over the topic of false memories. A study by researchers at Kent State University (www.personal.kent.edu/~mzaragoz/) shows the strong role of social-motivational factors in promoting the development of false memories. A Norwegian article (http://tidsskriftet.no/pls/lts/PA_LTS.Vis_Seksjon?vp_SEKS_ID=381521) on memories of sexual abuse in childhood points out the growing evidence drawn from empirical research that childhood sexual abuse can be recalled after being forgotten for many years, although the more frequent problem is the difficulty in forgetting traumatic events.

Extreme caution must be exercised, therefore, to assure all recovered memories are true and not the result of outside stimuli or a third party’s ulterior motives. Just as one must have a license to cast for fish, one should have a license to fish for memories. If trained professionals can do harm, imagine the irreparable damage that could be done by contingency-fee attorneys or headline-hunting journalists.

Proving one’s innocence is difficult, even with the Constitutional protection of “innocent until proven guilty” (www.stopbadtherapy.com/courage/rights.shtml). Proving innocence to accusations of deviant behavior alleged to have occurred years or decades earlier is almost impossible.

False accusations for any reason harm the innocent and impede justice for the aggrieved. Those who falsely accuse, those who defend them, and those who provide them a forum may also find themselves branded as enemies of the human race.

Next time: incest, the underreported crime